Potato conference hosting duties may be up for grabs

Chamber of Commerce discusses rejuvenating Fairgrounds for 2006 event

Moses Lake's annual celebration of the potato industry might just take place elsewhere in the future, and it's spurring talk of improvement within the city.

Even though it originated in Moses Lake, the Washington State Potato Conference and Trade Show is considering other possible locations for its 2006 event.

The 2005 conference will still take place in Moses Lake.

"This spring, the Potato Conference board heard from a group in Tri-Cities that it wanted to have a chance at hosting the event," said Karen Bonaudi, secretary-treasurer of the Potato Conference board. "They are called Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau, and sent a proposal. So the board said, OK, we have to go through this process. (We) also heard from the Trade, Recreation and Agricultural Center (TRAC) that they were also interested in bidding on the conference."

Bonaudi said that the board put together a Request for Proposal (RFP) and sent it to the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau, TRAC and Moses Lake, because those are the only places that they would be interested in going.

"(It's) prudent to at least consider what they have to offer," said Dale Lathim, president of the Washington Potato Conference and Trade Show. "(We decided to) open up to a formal bid process to evaluate what our options are."

Lathim said it's not the first time the conference has considered other locations.

"This is the furthest we've ever gone with it," he said. "There's been talk in the past about different locations, simply because we were outgrowing the facilities in Moses Lake. This last year we expanded to the fairgrounds, which helped tremendously, but this is the first time we've been approached by outside cities wishing to host it. This gave us more to go on and we're looking into it just to see what the possibilities are for our show."

"Who wouldn't be interested in it?" asked Kim Shugart, director of convention center sales for the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau. "We spend quite a bit of time trying to attract out-of-town visitors to our area and currently we're very well positioned to host an event as large as the potato conference. In June of this year, our brand new 7500 square-foot convention center opened, and it's adjacent to the 6,000-foot Three Rivers Coliseum, so it's really going to allow us to offer the Potato Conference everything in one close area."

Requirements on the Potato Conference's RFP invitation to host include a trade show site able to house booths and large equipment, food service and comfortable facilities for exhibitors to meet with clients; a main conference hall able to seat 500 with break-out seminar rooms within reasonable proximity and varied hotels, motels and restaurants able to meet the preferences and economic needs of a wide range of travelers and hosted receptions.

Bonaudi said that the conference in February had an actual head count of 1,770 people.

"It's been a very successful event in Moses Lake, and it's kind of surprising to me that another community has waited this long to express this much of an interest," she said.

When asked what kind of reaction she's gotten from Moses Lake residents about moving the conference, Bonaudi said that the board has had a few questions.

"But it's a little bit like being in the eye of a hurricane, in that you're aware there's a lot of stuff going on around you, but you don't know what it all is," she said.

The Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce held a meeting Thursday morning to discuss the city's proposal to the conference board.

"(The potato conference is) very important when you're looking at what they've estimated as revenues into the city and county, around $3 million, so I consider that very important," said Grant County commissioner Tim Snead. "It's a great concern; we do not want to lose the potato convention. And if you look at Grant County, Grant County was the number one ag producer in the state of Washington, so we need to keep ag-type conventions here in Grant County."

Steve McFarland, manager of the Best Western Hallmark Inn, agreed that the potato conference is very important economically, "considering how much money comes in and how many times the dollar turns.

"Especially that time of year, because we're a summer resort type of area, so any groups that we can bring in in the shoulder seasons and even in the winter, such as the potato conference, is great," he said. "It's something we don't want to lose, but if we did, we're all going to survive, one way or another, but we don't want that to happen."

Among the topics discussed at the Chamber meeting were potential improvements to the Grant County Fairgrounds, both to meet the needs of the 2006 conference and to house conferences in the future.

"There are really two concepts and ideas in play here in this particular meeting," said Al Holman, fair and facility manager for the Grant County Fairgrounds. "You have the conceptual plans for the (fairgrounds) over all, and then you have the needs of the Washington State Potato Conference … They have a request for bathrooms and currently, in the city of Moses Lake, Grant County Fairgrounds and Big Bend Community College, there's not a centralized location to house all their areas, their activities. This development (of the conceptual plans) will allow them to do that."

Holman said that the goal given the facilities committee by the Grant County commissioners is a year-round, self-sustaining facility that is a county-wide asset, and the plans are designed to do that.

A decision was made at the meeting to make the fairgrounds rejuvenation proposal to the Moses Lake City Council at the Aug. 10 meeting, in hopes of having a commitment in place in time to meet the potato conference board's Aug. 16 deadline for proposal submission.

The possibility of a real estate excise tax was also brought up at the meeting.

"The county right now is searching for funding sources where they can service the debt that would come from improving the fairground facilities," said Alan Heroux, president of the Chamber of Commerce, explaining that the excise tax is the tax imposed on essentially any real estate transaction. At present, it's 1.53 percent of the sales price value, but Heroux said that the county is talking about increasing it to 1.78 percent.

"They're talking about that to fund the improvements that we need to do," he said. "… The potato conference itself has been here for over 40 years, and we've got a real partnership that's developed over that time. I just think it would be a terrible thing to lose. We can't afford to lose things, we need to improve what we have and add to."

"I think it's important to retain the potato conference, no question about that, but to me, it's very important to look three, five, ten years down the road and make sure that we have the facilities and the infrastructure to be playing in the same ball game the other communities our size are playing in, to provide the facilities and services necessary for those groups that want to hold their meetings here," McFarland said.

"The status quo is not going to do us any good," said Karen Wagner, manager of the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce. "We must move forward; this looks like a plan that is going to be benefit to the whole county … (The potato conference) is going to hear big things from us. We're competitive. The history of the potato conference and trade show is to go the step further, and that's what we're doing. We've had the opportunity to show what we can do, and now we're really going to shine."